President Donald Trump on Friday urged the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the ties late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had to prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, as emails released this week raised questions about Trump’s account of his friendship with the disgraced financier.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump claimed Democrats are promoting the “Epstein Hoax” to “deflect from all of their bad policies and losses, especially the SHUTDOWN EMBARRASSMENT.”

The president, who has not taken any questions on the topic since the latest emails were made public by lawmakers Wednesday, made clear he wants members of his own party to stop talking about Epstein.

“Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish. Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!” Trump wrote.

“Don’t waste your time with Trump,” the president added, seeking to deflect attention to other figures named in the files. “I have a Country to run!”

President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 13.

Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In a follow-up post, Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI should probe the “involvement and relationship” Epstein allegedly had with Democratic figures, including Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and tech investor and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, “to determine what was going on with them, and him.” But that list notably excludes the president himself despite his well-documented friendship with Epstein.

The latest trove of documents prompted questions about the president’s own relationship with Epstein.

Trump “knew about the girls,” Epstein wrote in one of the three emails released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.

In another of the messages, from 2011, Epstein told his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell that Trump is the “dog that hasn’t barked” because he’d spent time with someone whose name is redacted as “VICTIM.”

“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote. ”[VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him,, he has never once been mentioned.”

The White House has dismissed the exchanges as meaningless.

However, this week’s release presented a new headache for the White House as it tries to recover from last week’s poor election results and the negative effects of the recent government shutdown on everyday Americans.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced the chamber will vote on the release of the full Epstein files next week after Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) became the final 218th signature on the “discharge petition” following her swearing-in ceremony, setting up the showdown Trump had actively tried to avoid.

Top administration officials summoned Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), a staunch ally and one of the three GOP women who signed on to the petition, for a meeting in the Situation Room with Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to discuss her support for the release of the files, a day after the president reached out to her directly, according to The New York Times.

Trump also tried to get in touch with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who also supported the petition, but didn’t manage to reach her. Mace later sent Trump a message explaining why she wouldn’t change her mind on signing the petition, the Times said.